Opening this Friday May 13th in the former Chez Papa Resto in Mint Plaza is ~SUSHI HASHIRI~, a high-end kaiseki and sushi restaurant. The owners—Kaoru Hayashi, Ryuichi Terayama, and Yasuyuki Rokuyata—have the original Hashiri in Daikanyama, Tokyo, and for SF, they’ve brought on executive chef Takashi Saito, the opening chef at Izakaya Yuzuki, who is fantastic. Working with him is sushi chef Tokunori Mekaru (from Hashiri Tokyo) and kaiseki chef Shinichi Aoki (he was executive chef at Menlo Park’s former Kaygetsu).

The seasonally driven kaiseki menu is $250 per person for the dining room and $300 at the sushi counter. (Have we hit peak omakase pricing in this town yet?) For those who want to really be splashy, there is a $500 chef’s table menu that requires two weeks’ notice. Well then.

There is a selection of high-grade sake and they carry the entire selection from Dassai Sake, plus wines and vintage Japanese whisky. There are also some special teas on offer.

The pottery and porcelain is from Kyoto, and the chic room features a canopy that will bring the theme of seasons to life via 16 projectors in the restaurant (by Hiroyuki Nakano) since hashiri means the beginning stage of the season of an ingredient. (Oh, the Japanese, so wonderful.) In case you are wondering: shun is the peak of the season, and nagori is the end of the season.

Scoop shares this: the room was deisgned by New York’s Yutaka Takiura and has 42 seats (there are 10 at the sushi counter).

There are two seatings each night, Tue-Sat, by reservation only: 5-5:30pm and 8pm. Opening Friday May 13th. 4 Mint Plaza, off 5th St., 415-908-1919.